Category: Media

Apologies for the super-long radio silence! Since I injured my arms and had to start using voice software for everything, blogging and Twitter kind of slip down the priority list.

Anyway-a quick update for you on where I’m at with work and research activities. Last year I was made a Reader in Media and Communication here at SHU, in a sideways move from my previous role as a programme leader. Currently, my main activities in this role (other than my own research and sitting on the research centre’s standing committee) are work in ethics reviewing and continue presence on the ethics committee as well as involvement with a range of activities relating to research students. Teaching-wise, I remain as module leader for undergraduate modules in media audiences (level 4), media, identities and representations (level 5) and celebrity culture (level 5/6).

Media-wise, I’m now a regular contributor to BBC Radio Sheffield on matters relating to media and film – I’m in there approximately once a month and it’s a lot of fun working with the team. My next appearance is on the lovely Paulette Edwards’ show on Fri April 27, around midday, should you want to tune in! I’m still a theatre critic over at Broadway World, and I also recently did some filming for a Duran Duran fan documentary, details TBC, but the filmmakers asked me some of the most interesting and tricky questions I’ve ever had an interview!

Lucy Bennett and I will be in conversation next week on Henry Jenkins’ blog as part of a series of reflections from scholars around the world on the state of fan studies. I will try to put something more up about this next week. It’s been really exciting to be involved in and Lucy and I had some really interesting exchanges back and forth so I hope it’s an interesting read for you. I’ve certainly been enjoying reading all the other contributions so far.

I also have several chapters about to be published imminently. I have a chapter on ethics in fan studies In Paul Booth’s edited collection A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (Wiley). Along with Stuart Bell, I have a chapter on the EastEnders 30th anniversary events in Everybody Hurts: Endings, Transitions and Resurrections in Fandom, edited by Rebecca Williams (University of Iowa press) and one on ‘safer spaces’ in the Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics (edited by Uri Gordon and Ruth Kinna). Conference-wise, my next date is Celebrity Studies in Rome in June, where I’ll be presenting on ‘clergy as celebrity’, looking at the likes of Richard Coles and Kate Bottley as well as other crossovers between the worlds of religious leadership and celebrity.

I also have some work on YouTube celebrity with Kathryn Murphy that is currently in the process of submissions and reviews, so watch this space for details, and a few more things in progress on topics including gender and fan studies, religion and television, reality television and soap opera.

I was a contributor to last week’s Artsnight on BBC Two. Curated by Clara Amfo, it looked at fame from a variety of angles – managers, fans, artists, journalists – a really interesting programme if you’re interested in celebrity in its various forms, and it was great to be part of it. (Plus special thanks to the two SHU students who patiently let us eat up a few minutes of the time they had booked in the library while we finished if you’re reading!) It’s available here for another 3-and-a-bit weeks if you want to catch it.